According Mark Gwynne of the Australian Dictionary Centre, Cornelius Crowe was 'an Irish-born Melbourne police officer... Crowe was a crusader against what he saw as widespread corruption in the Victorian political and law enforcement realms—this was the period of the entrepreneurial underworld figure John Wren. After his retirement, Crowe published a number of pamphlets that sought to expose corruption, including Bribery in the Federal and State Parliaments: Unjust Judges, Perjured Police, Innocent People Imprisoned (1903), Serious Tampering with the Course of Justice (1907), and Policemen and Politicians: A Story of Co-operative Crime (1921).'
Source: Mark Gwynne, 'Cornelius Crowe: The Australian Slang Dictionary', Ozwords (October 2010): 7
